DFW05LA023 · Cessna 150M
Cessna 150M · Accident: total loss of engine power (non-mechanical) en route
From East Texas Regional Airport (GGG) to an unrecorded destination
Event
- NTSB case
- DFW05LA023
- Event typeAccident: someone killed or seriously injured, or the aircraft substantially damaged (NTSB definition). Incident: an occurrence that affected or could have affected safety, short of that. Glossary
- Accident
- InvestigationHow far the investigation had got when the record was published: preliminary, ongoing, final or completed. Unknown where the source does not say. Glossary
- Completed
- API-reported fatalities
- 0 · all aircraft and ground
- Ground fatalities
- Unknown
- OperationWhat kind of flying it was, grouped by the rules it flew under: airline (US Part 121), air taxi and commuter (Part 135), general aviation (Part 91 and similar), military or government. Glossary
- General aviation
- WeatherVisual meteorological conditions (VMC): good enough to fly by looking outside. Instrument conditions (IMC): cloud or low visibility, flying by instruments. Glossary
- Visual Meteorological Cond
Cessna 150M
- Aircraft type
- Cessna 150
- Category
- Airplane
- RegistrationThe aircraft's tail number, such as N12345 or G-ABCD. Registrations are reissued, so the same one years apart can be a different aircraft. Glossary
- N704KX
- Operator
- Unknown
- Onboard fatalities
- Unknown
- Route
- From East Texas Regional Airport (GGG), Longview, TXTo not recorded
- Aircraft age
- Not recorded
- Flight rulesThe regulations the flight operated under: in the US, Part 91 (general aviation), Part 121 (airlines), Part 135 (air taxi and commuter) and others; for flights abroad, the NTSB's coarser commercial or non-commercial code. Glossary
- Part 91: General Aviation
- Phase of flightThe stage of the flight when things started to go wrong: standing, taxi, takeoff, initial climb, en route, maneuvering, approach or landing. Glossary
- En route · descent
- First occurrenceThe single coded event the NTSB judges best describes what happened (records from 2008 on). Older records name the first occurrence in the sequence instead. Glossary
- Total loss of engine power (non-mechanical)
- Also codedOther events the NTSB coded in the sequence, such as a wire strike after a loss of power. Flight Findings uses them for its kinds of event. Glossary
- Fuel exhaustion; Tree(s)
- DamageDestroyed: beyond practical repair. Substantial: damage that affects the structure, performance or handling and normally needs major repair. Minor: less than that. Glossary
- Substantial
Cause areas
- Fluid, fuel › Exhaustion
- Pilot in command › In-flight planning/decision, inadequate
Approximate · Coordinates from the NTSB case API, which marks them as estimated or does not say; no uncertainty radius is established.
NTSB narrative
The 93-hour private pilot contacted approach control, at the East Texas Regional The 93-hour private pilot contacted approach control, at the East Texas Regional Airport (GGG), with the intention of landing. After being handed over to the control tower and while approximately four miles west of the airport, the engine experienced an un-commanded reduction of power from 2,500 revolutions per minute (RPM) to approximately 1,000 RPM. The pilot tried moving the throttle to different positions, but was unable to change the RPM. Reporting the engine problem to the control tower, the pilot was cleared to land "any runway and any direction." Unable to make the airport, the pilot elected to land in a field. At approximately 50 feet above ground level (agl), the engine experienced a momentary burst of power and then returned to approximately 1,000 rpm. Committed to land, the pilot turned off the engine ignition switch and directed the airplane between two trees in an attempt to reach a suitable landing field. While maneuvering through the trees, the outer right wing contacted a tree and shortly thereafter the airplane settled to the ground, coming to rest in an upright position. According to a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) inspector, who responded to the accident site, both fuel tanks were intact and contained residual fuel. Approximately one inch of fuel was sumped from each fuel tank and there was no evidence of any fuel spill or leaks at the accident site.
Probable cause
The pilot's improper inflight planning which resulted in a loss of engine power due to fuel exhaustion. A factor was the lack of suitable terrain for the forced landing.
Verbatim NTSB analysis and probable cause from the NTSB dataset
Sources
NTSB record DFW05LA023
- Event ID
- 20041123X01852
- Case number
- DFW05LA023
- Dataset
- historical-pre2008
- Source SHA-256
- 89e2df6d848e7ab3b42e7d7c7a03ff403303057a26ca04c95b3ea67201c3ce74
Source notes (4)
- Unreviewed is an editorial label, not an investigation status. API-sourced is not report-checked or human-reviewed. Explicit event totals are used without summing aircraft injury tables; onboard allocation is withheld. Unknown values remain unknown. The operation category is mapped from the NTSB-reported FAR part and has not been reviewed.
- Filled from the NTSB case API where the bulk record had no value: investigation status, coordinates. Values present in the bulk record are kept.
- The date is the local date, which is the same as the UTC date the NTSB stores.
- API snapshot SHA-256: 819be08b6a3a459172293704dd314340df63abcd3efbd93c9788d5c3b981ef97; retrieved 2026-09-22T06:32:27.977Z.